In the hospital there are no care guidelines’: experiences and practices in perinatal loss in Spain
Open accessAbstract
BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Healthcare professionals play an important role in supporting and attending to families that experience a perinatal loss. Previous research has identified the existence of obstacles that professionals may encounter during their practices. The main objective of the current research was to identify and examine the subjective experiences and practices of experienced professionals attending to perinatal loss in the hospital context in Spain. DESIGN: Qualitative descriptive design. SETTING: Three different hospitals in Spain. PARTICIPANTS: Sixteen professionals were interviewed, including doctors, nurses, midwives, nursing assistants, a psychologist and a funeral home manager. METHODS: Individual semi-structured interviews focusing on three areas were carried out: practices with the baby-foetus, practices with parents and interaction with the team. A thematic analysis was performed using the three main focuses of the semi-structured interview (deductive approach) and the codes that emerged from the data (inductive approach). RESULTS: Regarding guideline-based care for the baby/foetus, participants made a distinction between the initial process of care for the baby and the decision-making process with parents. Where support for families was concerned, participants identified considerable variability in the practices used and lack of organisational and care guidelines, psychological support and follow-up. Finally, interactions with other team members were perceived as a source of support, although participants identified a significant lack of coordination. CONCLUSION: Participants reported variability of practices in care for the baby and parents, lack of continuity-of-care guidelines and the importance of support from a coordinated healthcare team.
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There is a lack of clear and standardized guidelines for bereavement care.
“Additionally, there remains a lack of clear and standardized guidelines for bereavement care.”
From Nurses' and midwives' experiences of supporting parents following perinatal bereavement: A qualitative systematic review (2026) · cites this paper as Fernández‐Alcántara et al., 2020
Healthcare providers are ill-equipped to appropriately offer bereavement care to parents.
“As a result, healthcare providers are ill-equipped to appropriately offer bereavement care to parents (Fernández‐Alcántara et al., 2020).”
From Nurses' and midwives' experiences of supporting parents following perinatal bereavement: A qualitative systematic review (2026) · cites this paper as Fernández‐Alcántara et al., 2020
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- Authors
- Fernández‐Alcántara, M., Schul‐Martin, L., García Caro, M. P., Montoya‐Juárez, R., Pérez‐Marfil, M. N., & Zech, E.
- Affiliations
- University of Alicante (ES)
- UCLouvain (BE)
- Mind, Brain, and Behaviour Research Centre (CIMCYC) University of Granada Granada Spain
- Universidad de Granada (ES)
- Corresponding author
- Montoya‐Juárez, Rafael
- Venue
- Scandinavian Journal of Caring Sciences
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2020-01-10
- Volume
- 34
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 1063-1073
- ISSN
- 0283-9318 (ISSN-L)
- 1471-6712
- OpenAlex
- W2999601060
- Cited by
- 26
- References
- 48
- Citations by year
- 2026: 5 · 2025: 6 · 2024: 6 · 2023: 7 · 2022: 1 · 2021: 1
- FWCI
- 0.90
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- hdl.handle.net
- Locations
- Scandinavian Journal of Caring Sciences (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- LA Referencia (Red Federada de Repositorios Institucionales de Publicaciones Científicas) (submittedVersion)
- Digital Access to Libraries (Université catholique de Louvain (UCL), l'Université de Namur (UNamur) and the Université Saint-Louis (USL-B)) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Institutional Repository of the University of Granada (University of Granada) (submittedVersion)
- Repositorio Institucional de la Universidad de Alicante (Universidad de Alicante) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Grief, Bereavement, and Mental Health
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Pediatrics, Perinatology and Child Health › Infant Development and Preterm Care
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health › Palliative and Oncologic Care
- Keywords
- perinatal loss, stillbirth, neonatal death, health professionals' experiences, care practices, continuity of care, care guidelines, family support, psychological support, hospital care, Spain
- MeSH terms
- Female, Fetal Death, Health Personnel, Hospitals, Humans, Infant, Parents, Pregnancy, Spain, Terminal Care, Qualitative Research, Infant Death
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